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Chapter1
montohearsomebodysay‘CanyoutranslateittomeasIdonotunder-
standwhatyouhavesaid?’Althoughtherehasbeenverylittleresearch
intolanguageprocessinginwhichinterlingualtranslationandparaphrase
arecross-examined,scholarsgenerallyagreethattheunderlyingproc-
essessharesomesimilaritiesinbothkindsoftranslationaswellasdem-
onstratedifferencesduetothedifferentcodesinvolved.
Havingacknowledgedtheproblemswithexpressingandinterpreting
meaningwithinonelanguageinintralingualcommunication,beingplaced
inasituationwhentocommunicateonehastocrosslanguagebarriers
givesusacompletelydifferentperspective.Ifasitisassumedthereare
about6,900languagesintheworld(figurequotedin1992theyearsetby
theUnitedNationsas“TheYearofEndangeredLanguages”)andwecon-
siderourselvesproudusersoftwolanguages,itistheoreticallypossible
thatin6,898caseswemighthavetousetheservicesofinterlingualtrans-
lators.Generally,itistakenforgrantedthatwhencommunicationcan
onlytakeplacethroughtranslation(proper,asJakobson(1959)calledin-
terlingualtranslation),itthenbecomesthetask,privilegeandresponsibil-
ityofthoselanguageuserswhohavetheknowledgeoftwolanguagesand
adequateskillstomediatemeaningacrosslanguagebarriers.
1.3.Translationproperessentialdistinctions
Tostartwiththeterm‘translation’hasmultiplemeaningsintheEnglish
language.Itreferstotheproduct,i.e.abookwhichwastranslated,whichis
theoutcomeofthetranslator’swork.Thissenseoftheworldispossiblythe
mostfrequentlyusedandcommonforpeopleoutsidethetranslationprofes-
sionorstudentsoflanguageswhoarelikelytoviewtranslationasanactiv-
ity.Forthosewhoworkastranslators,theword‘translation’referstoboth
theproductandtheprocesswhichleadstoatranslationofthesourcelan-
guage(SL)textwhichreceivesanewleaseoflifeasitstargetlanguage
(TL)version.Theactoftranslatinghasbecometobeunderstoodasacom-
plexprocessofproblemsolvinganddecisionmakingwithadynamicinter-
playofcognitive,socialandculturalfactors(Snell-Hornby1988,Tymoc-
zko2005,Kiraly2005a,TymoczkoandGenzler2007).Theaimoftranslat-
ingistoovercomecommunicationbarrierscreatedbylanguages(whether
verbalorsign)andtomakethemeaningexpressedinonelanguagesystem
availabletothosewhodonothavetheknowledgeofthatparticularsystem.
Finally,thewordtranslationrefersalsototheskillsneededtoperformthe